‘Right No’: What happens when poet moonlights as philosopher

May 9, 2013

William Hathaway's brilliant new volume of poetry, The Right No, ably demonstrates what happens when a poet moonlights as a philosopher.

In these poems he both asks and answers questions about identity, existence and time. He does so in a manner that only causes more questions to surface. Hathaway reminds us that above all we are simultaneously the eternally curious victims and the eternally curious conquerors not only of ourselves, but of an inexplicable universe. These are poems that reconcile ancient longings with the modern disbelief that causes us to declare "no" to the fragility of the human condition.

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The first poem, aptly titled "No," takes place in a grocery store just as a storm is about to hit: "A storm is coming/so everyone's stocking up." This line is but a prelude to the next observation of the poem: "Something is always coming." He then clarifies exactly what it is that comes: "A storm, a Super Bowl, a war/until the nothing that ends us/comes." He punctuates this observation with the ultimate observation: "My death is coming..." The poet then articulates what he can do about the fact of death which touches everybody and everything:

But no. For a long time within me

a Great No has been coming

the way crows fill a tree...

Hathaway then allows us to realize that the poem is an address to Jesus: "and though I fear to quibble/with you, Jesus, (for I love you/fiercely)..." Addressing Christ leads him to reflect on the fact that not only do the goods in the store mean nothing, but that the gift of Christ "has been a labor upon the heart." Because of this, he says "no" to the coming oblivion, remaining loyal to Jesus as he states,

I stand

and wait as those before and after,

loyal to you who are the Truth.

Hathaway continues to philosophize about human mortality and the nature of time within the universe in poems which focus on the natural world and animal life. Poems such as "Red Squirrel Morning," "The Box Turtle," "The House Spiders" and "The Bear in the Bird Feeder" each open with a meditation on a specific animal, which then leads to an observation about the human condition and our place in the universe. In "Ow," a wounded red owl who is rescued by the poet then wounds the poet before speeding off: "and her talons seized into the soft/pommel of my thumb." The poet rejoices at the resilience of the bird: "Glad is the word old poets/called this sort of heart."

The poet continues the search for meaning in later poems such as "Breeze," where the simultaneous songs of a nuthatch, a sparrow and a yellowthroat lead him to reflect on the divine pattern found in things: "A design proving God is love,/perhaps? Or even that a racecar/driver we admire did not die/in vain?"

In "Reading Audubon with the Flu," he concludes, "a fevering mind can find no rest." It is this frenzy of thought, this desire to analyze, which drives the remarkable poems in this book. Perhaps the most poignant and telling lines of the volume are the concluding lines of "And Then Lights Out:" "For wisdom in blind seers/and fools alike is like that one star/that denies undeniable darkness."

The poems in The Right No cast an inextinguishable light on what is beautiful in the universe. As such, these poems illuminate the darkest corners of the human imagination. Though we are invited to imagine death and the possibility of a blank hereafter, Hathaway invites us into his world of "no," where denial is the most strident of affirmations.

Sonja James is the author of Baiting the Hook (the Bunny & the Crocodile Press, 1999), Children of the Moon (Argonne House Press, 2004), and Calling Old Ghosts to Supper (Finishing Line Press, 2013).

Poets from W.Va., Va., Md., Pa., D.C. and Ky. are invited to submit recent books for review consideration. Contact Sonja James at sonjajames@earthlink.net.